User Reviews

Overall Rating:

Value Rating:

Submitted by
ducakrugs
a Audio Enthusiast

Date Reviewed: February 7, 2014

Bottom Line:

I have this Quad CD 63 hooked up to an Affordable Valve Company High End KT88 integrated amplifier with silver plated audio interconnects from Vann Damme with Epic speaker cable from Chord,,,,,,The speakers are single wired Linn Kelidah's

They say there is no bass from this CD player and the Linn Kelidahs are a difficult load for a valve amp....I have never heard in all my years 30 odd a system that is as simply musical...The depth of Bass is excellent and very organic and believable...Female vocals in fact any vocals male or female are precise but carry a lovely relaxed and real tone....

The decay of instrumentation is so obvious and the music pulls you in....The Quad cd player is simply the best I have ever heard.....I was going to get an off board DAC but don't see any point as I don't think it could be improved on without spending mega money.......

I owned this beautiful player for about 2 years before swapping it for the newer Quad 77. Each player has its own strengths and weaknesses, but if I had to pick the one I'd take to a desert island that has a running power supply (of course!), it would have to be the older model.The Quad CD67 is beautiful in all aspects. Very well made, gorgeous finish, simple layout... and great sound. The previous reviews here pretty much capture how it sounds like. Excellent midband and treble (soft yet detailed), but not much bass to speak of.

I've spent many, many hours in a darkened room listening to the Quad 67 make music with female vocals, acoustics and chamber music. The realism is simply stunning. It is really THE player to beat for simple, atmospheric music. The sound just hangs in the air like an exquisite perfume... nothing is forced down your throat in the way that my Naim Nait 3 amp does, for instance.

Where it comes apart is with big orchestral works, electronic pop and complicated rock. When the passages get busy, the player has a tendency to get muddled and confused (!). It simply cannot keep track of the goings-on. In this respect, the Quad 77 is a little better.

If you play the right kind of music at reasonable listening levels (the sound hardens quite noticeably when played loud) the Quad CD67 is sheer magic. This really is a player for listeners with a more "mature" taste.

By comparison, the Quad 77 is nothing really special. It is beefier, no doubt, but coupled with the laid-back, "natural" sound that is traditionally Quad, the Quad 77 sounds lazy and fat (!). In fact, I'm selling it off to get the Audio Refinement Complete CD player.

I've had mine for five years now, and I must say I am very content. By that time, the CD player I figured was the closest competitor was the TEAC VRDS-10, and I compared both in my home. The choice was obvious! In my system of a passive preamplifier (McCormack's LineDrive), Tandberg's lesser poweramp (TPA 3026A - 2 x 100 W) driving a pair of Quad ESL-63s the TEAC was way too lean and uninvolving. It is probably better suited to a livelier system than mine. But the Quad truly sang! Especially vocals were very well projected and dynamic. And here lies the strength of the Quad 67 - its midrange. It is dynamic, lush, and involving. Treble is good too, but it does have traces of grain, especially noted with high, loud orchestral violins. Bass is absolutely adequate for my system, but others have noted that the extreme low bass could be better. I really don't think you can hear that on the ESL-63's though. Give them a good poweramp with a high damping factor and the Arcici stands and place them well and the bass is quite stunning down to maybe 40 Hz. And the 67 is not a weak performer here either. The weakness - if there is one - is probably only noticed further down.So this is a very decent CD player. Buy it second-hand (you have to, since it is not made anymore), and I think its value for money is very hard to fault. You will have to pay a lot more to get better CD sound. It's built like a tank too. In this context it is therefore well worth 5 stars (or loudspeakers).